Midnight Storm
by TimeLordParadox
Summary: The TARDIS takes the Doctor to the derelict, luxury cruise liner the Cairo at the same time as Leon Kennedy arrives on the same ship to investigate why all contact was recently lost with this luxury cruise liner turned Umbrella mobile research facility.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own either Doctor Who or Resident Evil.

This is an adventure featuring the 8th Doctor, Lucie Miller and Leon S. Kennedy

Lucie Miller is a character created by Big Finish

**Authors notes**

I changed the name of this story because I didn't like the original title I gave it which was 'Curse of the Cairo'

Enjoy

* * *

Doctor Who/Resident Evil crossover

**Midnight Storm**

By TimeLordParadox

(Aka Ross Pickering)

Prologue

Left and right, left and right, left and right. Dr Graeme Tyler watched as his pen rolled from one side of his desk then roll back the other way. The ground was hardly ever stable as his room gently rocked from one side then the other. He hated sailing it made him sea sick, even those tablets he took didn't help the sea sickness, left and right, left and right. He couldn't sleep either as his stomach listed from side to side with the room, he felt like he was going to be sick sooner or later.

He looked around at the digital clock on the wall, it read 4:00am, 5 hours he's been awake with the feeling of imminent vomit coming, he couldn't take it anymore. He got gently out of bed and went over to a small door in his cramped cabin and went inside. He lifted up the toilet seat, placed his hands on the wall above it and prepared to vomit, but nothing came out. He stood at the toilet waiting to be sick for a good 10 minutes but still nothing came out. At least he felt better standing up over the toilet then he did lying on his back.

He heard foot steps come past his front door and gradually walk away, this ship was running 24 hours a day seven days a week, it was a nightmare. His employers the Umbrella Corporation posted him here from their London lab to this non-stop moving laboratory. He's been here for nearly a month and still he hadn't found his sea legs. He requested to the Umbrella Corporation for a transfer so he could get out of this place but they refused him, why did he agree to do this anyway?

He had no idea why they built this mobile laboratory, why couldn't it be on land somewhere, somewhere were the ground was steadier, it didn't have to be in London, it could've been in the tropics or somewhere warm. He placed his hands on the walls to steady himself, his head was spinning. He couldn't spend the rest of the night like this he decided. He was going to take a walk around the ship, get some air it might make him feel better.

He left the toilet and pulled on his trousers, shirt, shoes and tie before slipping on a nice long warm coat. He opened his door and closed it behind him, he signed as he tried to steady his head.

The corridor was brightly lit and carpeted with several doors lining each side, each one leading to another cabin of another person. His eyes blinked to get used to the bright lights, was he actually coming down with something?

He gently walked down the corridor passing several other personal who were wearing lab coats. Since this ship worked 24 hours a day there was always someone on duty working in the lab, all of them working on one field of research or another. They were also a mixture of different nationalities, English, Scottish, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, even Welsh, and a large number of Americans most of whom were soldiers, he didn't know why they needed soldiers onboard and he never got the chance to ask, his days were pretty much taken up with working and being sea sick for half the day and being sleepless through the night.

Dr. Tyler worked in genetics more specifically virology, he was proud of what he did and what he was trying to do, but he was too tired to think about what it was they were working on right now, his brain wasn't in gear to think about science stuff.

One of the cabin doors slid opened a head of him, at first nothing came out but then came the form of a man out of the dark cabin, he was quite a chubby man dressed in nothing but a white T-shirt and boxer shorts, not the usual attire for someone on duty onboard ship. The mans movements were sluggish and slow like a child learning to walk, he turned to face Graeme and then started coming towards him, his eyes were open but unfocused and his mouth hung open, which emitted a low groan.

"Brian" said Graeme quite loudly "Not again" he approached Brian held his hand out in front of his face and snapped his fingers a couple of times, nothing raising his hands he clapped them together in front of Brian's face as hard as he could. Brian's eyes suddenly focused and his body jerked and nearly feel over.

"I'm up! I'm UP!" he said as he regained his balance, "Graeme?" he asked as his mind began to catch up with him "What are you doing here?"

"You should ask yourself the same thing" he said looking down at Brian's underdressed attire. Brian looked around and his face started to go red.

"I was sleep walking again?" he asked.

"Yes" Graeme replied as he yawned sleepily, ever since Brian came on board a few weeks ago he had a habit of sleep walking during the night. The physician Dr. Johnson had put it down to stress and an unhealthy appetite because he had to work so hard "Didn't you take those tablets Dr. Johnson gave you?"

"I can't remember" Brian said as he turned around to go back into his room, only to find the door locked again "Oh no" he said "I left my key card in there!"

Graeme reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a key card and swiped it through the reader on the side of the door, it bleeped and a clicking sound indicated it was now open. Graeme had obtained a master key card from the security desk because he was one of the top scientists in the facility which entitled him to one, he didn't know why they just gave him it.

"Thanks Graeme" Brian said as he went inside "You're a life saver"

"By the way" Graeme said before Brian shut the door on him "You don't think I could have any of your sleeping tablets?" he said rubbing his eyes.

"You know the rules" Brian said "You're not allowed to take medication that wasn't prescribed to you"

"Sometimes I wonder if it's worth the risk" Graeme rubbed his eyes again.

"Sea sickness again?" Brain said sympathetically "Go to Dr. Johnson for something"

"I've been to see him already Brian the stupid tablets don't work" he snapped, he took a deep breath before saying "Sorry Brian, I just haven't been able to sleep"

"That's okay" he said sleepily himself "I'll see you in the morning" and closed the door.

Graeme began walking down the corridor again and climbed up a set of stairs which actually looked quite grand for a research vessel decorated in a fine luxury style of polished wood. He arrived on the top deck of the ship and smelt the fresh cold salty sea air. That really cleared his sinuses and helped to settle his stomach.

The ship was called the Cairo, a strange name for a ship which sailed the Atlantic for most of the year. Apparently she had been a luxury cruise ship before Umbrella purchased it and refitted it to be a mobile laboratory. He didn't understand the need of a mobile lab, some suggested it's because Umbrella had secret experiments going on that they didn't want rival companies finding out about. Others said it was because their research wasn't legal anymore, he had heard rumours circulating around the ship of an incident in a Midwestern American town called Racoon City where a top secret virus they were working on in their lab escaped and caused an epidemic outbreak that began killing the citizens of the city. The US government had to bomb the place with a nuclear device to destroy all traces of the virus before contamination spread beyond the city limits and out of hand, which probably explained why they moved a lab out here, if a virus spread though out the ship it could be more easily contained.

It wasn't as if they were working or at least he wasn't working on anything which would kill someone if they became infected with it, at least that's not what his intended research was. He was working on curing genetic diseases which were caused by missing or damaged strands of DNA. Since viruses were designed to insert extra DNA strands into a host cell his research was to create a virus which could replace those damage or missing strands in the correct places or in the cases of a cancer patient create a virus that would recognise and home directly on the cancer cells and destroy them.

Though he was in the medical department he didn't know what other labs on the ship were doing. There was a section devoted to creating and developing weapons technology another lab was devoted to developing faster high-tech computers and the fourth lab didn't really have a name the only indication it existed was a door which was clearly marked with the dangerous Bio-Hazard label.

He breathed in deeply and exhaled the cold air, his stomach still felt like hell but he felt better at least. Only a few more months of this hellish listing and he'd be back on dry land, back to where he could fully focus on his work without higher up people from other departments badgering him to have a look at his research. A few more months and his contract with this ship would expire and the helicopter on a launch pad at the stern of the ship would return him to the nearest airport and plane back to London.

What Dr. Graeme Tyler couldn't possibly know as he sat there on a bench in the darkness breathing in the cool Atlantic air was that in a matter of hours, he and everyone else on the ship would be dead.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Lucie Miller was suffering form another type of listing ship that was buffeting all over the place, 'up' constantly kept changing direction as the TARDIS refused to stay still for more then six seconds.

The room she was in was gigantic almost the size of a warehouse only it had no ceiling only blackness which appeared to go on forever. The vast space was decorated like a Victorian gothic church in some senses and a Victorian gentleman's house in others. In the centre of this room was a polished wooden six sided console with brass and silver instruments and gages which made it look like something out of a Joules Vern book.

The centre console stood on a hexagonal wooden platform, from the six points of this platform came six steel girders which rose up into the air at an angle leaning towards the console before diving back down into a steel cylindrical vessel which sat on top of a long glass cylinder which also went straight down into the middle of the six sided console. Inside the glass cylinder were several blue glowing crystals arranged in a sort of crown arrangement. There were two of these one above the other, they separated spacing themselves out a little ways before coming back together again then repeated this movement again and again, each time those crystals moved whether it be up or down it produced a wheezing groaning noise which had a different pitch depending on if the crystals were separating or joining again.

Running around the controls of this six sided console was a man who simply liked to be known as the Doctor. He was a tall man with shoulder length and slightly curly, chestnut coloured hair, a thin, hansom face with a pale completion and pale green eyes.

His clothes were very unusual he fitted into his surroundings very well and probably would fit into almost anywhere as long as it was a scene from Charles Dickens. He wore a very dark green, velvet, knee length, double breasted frock coat with a double breasted grey waist coat and a grey cravat tied over a wing collar shirt which wouldn't look out of place going to a dinner in a tuxedo. Lucie never could quite figure out why he dressed like that, the only place he wouldn't look out of place would be Victorian England but he wore that everywhere they went, throughout all space and time.

Their ship, the TARDIS which stood for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, wasn't any ordinary ship, in fact it was as far from ordinary as you could get. For one it didn't just travel the seas or the air, it moved through both space and time between planets and galaxies and different time periods as easily as a ship cuts through the water. Which is why Lucie felt especially sick, sea sickness wasn't what it should be called but it felt like that. The large room felt like it was in the middle of an earth quake which was rocking the ship from side to side.

Of course another noticeable feature of the ship which you couldn't see from inside here was that it was very different from the outside. Outside it was no bigger then a phone box. This probably wouldn't make sense to many people, but the simple explanation was. The ship was bigger on the inside then the outside. The inside may look large spacious but if you stepped outside a pair of large wooden doors on one side of the room you would find yourself stepping out of the doors of a 1950's British Police Telephone Box.

That was something else, the TARDIS was disguised though very badly as a blue Police Box, she remembered her Grandma telling her about them they used to be everywhere on every street corner so coppers could contact their head quarters and the public could phone in, in case they needed the police but with the invention of the police radio they were obsolete and were taken down.

Apparently according to the Doctor the TARDIS wasn't supposed to look like a Police Box all the time, it should blend in and change its shape when it arrives somewhere new, adopt a different disguise to fit in and remain undetected but because something called the Chameleon Circuit was jammed the TARDIS was stuck looking like a Police Box. Lucie didn't know if she believed that part or not, that the TARDIS could change its shape.

The floor started to level out as the Doctor fought with the controls to keep his time ship steady.

"Here it comes" he said pulling back on a brass lever marked 'break' "She's turning"

Finally the floor levelled and the Doctor breathed a sign of relief. Lucie got up from the padded chair she had been sitting in while this ride went on.

"Oh is the ride over now?" she said with her northan English accent.

"Yes Lucie" the Doctor said "The TARDIS simply met a little bump in the vortex, nothing too serious" he patted the wooden console affectionately. He often behaved as if his ship was a living thing. She used to have an ant who named her car Betty and treated it like it had feelings, ever met someone like that? Well that's how she usually felt when the Doctor treated the TARDIS like it was alive.

She often wondered if it was, it seemed whenever she badmouthed the TARDIS it would react in some way, the Doctor couldn't possibly know every time she says something like that but no matter where she was her room, the bath, the garden anywhere the TARDIS would react somehow, sometimes producing a strange gurgling noise from somewhere or causing the room she was in to shake violently. Though this time she hadn't badmouthed the TARDIS it simply started shaking around like someone shaking up a snow globe.

"Nothing too serious?" she asked "I was nearly thrown into one of these great big girders she gestured towards the girders which rose above the console.

"Lucie you've been flying before surely you've felt turbulence" the Doctor said in that posh sounding British accent of his.

"I've felt turbulence before, Doctor" she crossed her arms over her chest "But at least on a plane you have seatbelts"

"Seatbelts for a grade two temporal storm?" the Doctor signed as if what he just said made the slightest bit of sense and returned to his controls, tapping a small gage with his finger to make sure it was working properly, though it probably wasn't. "Lucie, I've travelled through worst storms and came out the other side unscathed"

"Isn't the captain of his ship supposed to ensure the safety of his passengers?" she complained again.

"The captain of this ship is trying to concentrate" the Doctor said a slight irritation in his voice "I need to set these coordinates correctly or we'll over shoot again"

"Not as if the TARDIS ever lands where you want it to" she countered, the TARDIS had a very bad habit of landing in the worst place and at the worst time, usually when some big crisis is going to happen.

"I've got us to the last five places" the Doctor said

"Yeah, but all at the wrong time, what about meeting Queen in the 80's? Except we land 500 years too early!"

"Pretty accurate considering the age of the universe" the Doctor said busying himself with the controls again.

"Accurate! You call 500 years accurate? 500 years I could've lived and died over 50 times before Queen even came around." The Doctor was now holding up his hand for silence "No I will not be bloody silent Doctor, this ship of yours can never land in the correct place and time, it's always the correct place wrong time or the right time wrong place or even the wrong planet and why are you waving your hands like that?"

The Doctor was waving his hands in a gesture for her to shut up, his eyes weren't looking at either Lucie or the TARDIS console they just stared into space like he was listening for something. He sniffed and his attention returned to the console where he sniffed again.

"What are you…?" but she could smell it now to, a faint smell like burning electronics. "What's that smell?" she asked apprehension rising in her voice.

"Ozone" the Doctor came back as he disappeared down under the central console.

"What does that mean?" Lucie asked joining him at the console.

"Something's caught fire!" the Doctor yelled, he blew on it as if that would've been enough to put it out, smoke started to come from under the TARDIS console "I need the fire extinguisher!" he shouted.

Lucie Miller made to run off and get one but turned back to the Doctor "Where do I get one?"

The Doctor was pointing to one area of the room in particular which looked like the inside of a Victorian green house with green plants which grew up the side of the walls and twisting around the carved spaces in the décor, the area also had a piano and a large collection of antique clocks. "Trunk under the chess set" he said.

Lucie ran back to the garden area and found an old leather trunk under a small table with a chess set on top of it. She pulled it out undid the catches and opened it up, there wasn't the immediate shape of a fire extinguisher in the box.

"What does the fire extinguisher look like?" she called back as more smoke started coming from the console.

"Like a fire extinguisher" the Doctor called back.

"Oh right, very helpful" Lucie said under her breath as she pulled things out of the trunk, old books, boots, a large strange looking object which looked like a backpack with an old cars side mirror attached to it, finally she saw a red cylinder and black handle of a fire extinguisher. She snatched it up and ran back to the Doctor.

"Stand back!" she said as she ducked down under the console and prepared to fire it.

"NO!" shouted the Doctor but too late as Lucie pressed on the handle and a jet of white foamy liquid came from the nozzle and entered the panel the Doctor had opened under the console where the fire was.

The TARDIS suddenly gave a great lurch to one side and stopped at about a 45 degree angle, everything on the floor which wasn't held down began sliding to one side, his chair, his gramophone, his books everything.

Lucie grabbed onto one of the girders to prevent her sliding down with the rest of the junk as the Doctor reached up to the console and pulled sharply down on the 'break'. The wheeze and groan of the TARDIS engines began to rising in pitch and then began a series of low pitches with higher pitches as the machine began to land when and wherever they where. With a loud Ka-chud the TARDIS came to a stop and the room levelled out again.

Lucie got to her feet and so did the Doctor who did no look happy, apparently this meant Lucie had done something she shouldn't have. He opened his mouth to say something when. Bang! The floor suddenly felt like it was rising up and they both fell in a heap to the floor. They must've landed above ground and the TARDIS had fallen the rest of the way.

The Doctor and Lucie never got the chance to do or say anything as the room slowly began tilting again at an awkward angle.

"Oh not again!" Lucie screamed as she grabbed the girder again, the Doctor however could not get a grip on anything and began sliding down to one side of the room. Where he gently landed on the wall of the room, the TARDIS must've tipped up on its side because that wall was now the floor and the floor was now the far wall.

Something fell straight down in front of Lucie's face, it was a book its pages flapping around like it was trying to fly. Then came another book which fell down and she heard flapping pages from behind her as another fell. Lucie had an uneasy feeling what was happening. She looked up at the far wall which would've been taken up by a long shelf full of books like a library, only the shelves were empty and falling down towards what was now the floor were hundreds of books.

Lucie tried to shield herself as books began raining down over her, she just managed to keep her grip as they all fell past her. The Doctor had managed to seize an umbrella from the umbrella stand which used to sit by the door but now sat on its side on the wall, he opened the umbrella to protect him from the raining books.

"Lucie!" he called up as the complete works of Shakespeare landed on top of his umbrella "Lucie, press the blue button on the console sixth panel!"

"How the flippin' heck am I supposed to do that?" she complained still hanging onto the girders.

"Panel six is just above you" he called up as the last book impacted his fabric shield "Just reach up and push the blue button"

"Okay" Lucie said uncertainty in her voice, she lifted her leg over the girder and forced herself onto it, she then stood up on the grey, narrow metal mesh and reached up to the controls, she was slightly scared of heights at this point because the girder wasn't that thick and she could feel the room gently rocking from side to side. She looked at the polished wooden panel for a blue button, finding it she reached out to press it.

"What does the blue button do anyway?" she asked as she pressed it, she got her answer immediately. With disorientating speed everything righted itself so the floor was the floor again, unfortunately Lucie Miller wasn't prepared for this so she impacted the wooden floor with the grace of a drunk Scouse lad on a Saturday night.

"It rights the TARDIS interior" came the Doctors answer a little too late.

"Yeah, thanks for the warning, Doctor" Ignoring her sarcasm the Doctor pushed a few books out of the way. As the TARDIS had righted the books must've slid straight down to the floor with the Doctor partially burying him, releasing himself from the pile of books he went back up to the console and began checking instruments again.

"Why did you spray the TARDIS?" he asked anger present in his voice though he tried to suppress it.

"You said it was on fire!" she complained indigently

"I needed the fire extinguisher…" he began to explain as if to a child "to lightly put out a small electrical fire, I didn't need the entire TARDIS putting out"

"Oh well thanks very much!" she complained, the Doctor could be a pain at times it seems like nothing would please him half the time but she was also annoyed with herself because all the indignities she had just suffered she had done to herself.

"Nothing too damaged" the Doctor said ducking under the console checking the circuit boards "Oh no wait, the dematerialisation circuits are damaged"

"What does that mean?" Lucie asked.

"It means we won't be able to take off again until the self repair system fixes it" the Doctor said "and we'll need something to replace the atmosphere shield, it won't last long in this condition and it won't self repair."

"…and that's bad because?" Lucie asked, she had been with the Doctor for a while now so she had picked up on all these strange words he used and she half expected it to be what he was going to say it would be.

"Because, we could take off again but we won't be able to breath" the Doctor went up to a lever and pulled it across the console, a string of lights along it lit up as it slid into the far position and the scanner screen came to life.

The scanner had the appearance of an old television set from the 50's, it hung on a telescopic arm and dangling from its underside was a chain with a handle on it like one you'd use to flush an old style toilet. The Doctor pulled on it to bring the scanner screen further down so they could see it. Despite being from the 50's the set produced perfect colour images, only in this case all they could see was blackness.

"Scanner on the blink is it?" she said in an annoying tone of smugness.

"Of course not" the Doctor said as he adjusted a few knobs on the set and the image panned around. It began to become obvious from the picture that the TARDIS was still tipped up on its side despite the interior being level, Lucie didn't feel in the mood to question this she probably wouldn't be able to understand the answer anyway.

As the image panned to the side they saw the surface of a large inky black ocean as the waves crashed against the shell of the TARDIS, because the ship was on its side the water actually appeared on the left side of the set rather then at the bottom where it should be. Lucie craned her neck to one side to see what the scene should look like outside.

"We're in the middle of the ocean" the Doctor said.

"Hmm, I never would've guessed" ignoring Lucie's sarcasm the Doctor went on.

"Which means, Lucie Miller, that we're stuck, adrift at sea with no spare parts to replace the atmosphere shield, without which even a short hop would suffocate us" he said gravely.

"Well…" Lucie started thinking fast "Can't you, I don't know call for help or something send an SOS like they did in when Titanic started to sink?"

"CQD" the Doctor said

"What?" Lucie asked irritation in her voice.

"CQD, Come Quickly Danger they sent that first, Titanic didn't send SOS until later"

"Whatever! Can't you send one of them?" Lucie half shouted getting annoyed with the Doctor's flippancy, but he didn't answer and Lucie knew this often meant no.

"Roll on thy deep and dark blue ocean, roll…" the Doctor said suddenly

"What's that then? Timelord code for I can't?" Lucie said

"It's Byron" he said as if this explained everything, he then continued his quote "…ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain, man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore"

A loud bleeping noise issued from the TARDIS console and a short alarm burst came from the endless ceiling above.

"What is that?" Lucie asked putting her hands over her ears

"It's the proximity sensors something's coming dangerously close to us" the Doctor explained as he took the controls of his time, Lucie had no idea what these alien controls did but whatever the Doctor was doing it probably wouldn't fix it.

The scanner panned around again only this time showing the view from the other side of the box, the sea was now on the right hand side of the screen instead of the left and they could see something cutting through the water about to ram into them. A loud crashing noise came and the TARDIS shook violently as whatever it was passed their way. The shaking started to fade and the TARDIS settled down after the impact.

"Did we hit an iceberg or something?" Lucie asked

"No, we were hit by a ship" the Doctor said regaining his composure.

They could now hear slight long drawn out knocking noises which sounded to Lucie like when you're on a log flume and the cart or boat whatever it was called you were in hit something under the water, that's what it sounded like. The Doctor turned back to the scanner.

"It's passing by us" he said, which meant the TARDIS was impacting it as the water pushed it up against the ship. "But that's odd" the Doctor said in a tone of voice when something wasn't right and given his track record right now it probably wasn't going to be an odd sort of something you could explain away logically. She knew he wanted her to ask what was odd but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of showing off again, yes Doctor, no Doctor, what is it Doctor? Three bags full Doctor. When she didn't ask what it was he turned to her with a look that was trying to prompt her to ask, but when she didn't he just continued on regardless. "That ship is in the middle of the ocean but it's not going very fast"

"What do you mean not going very fast it rammed right into us didn't it?" she said.

"No we rammed into it" the Doctor said as he went into one of his explanations "when we landed we must've had some left over kinetic energy that pushed us into the side of the ship."

Lucie had a good look at the scanner and saw as the TARDIS slowly started to drift away from the ship. The Doctor moved gently passed her and walked towards an archway, which lead deeper into his time machine.

"Hey" she shouted after him "Where are you going?" the Doctor turned around momentarily to explain.

"That ship is our only chance of rescue, we need to make contact with it, come on!" he gestured for her to follow him.

"Where are we going?" she asked as she hurried to catch up.

"TARDIS storeroom" he explained as he walked onwards through a pair of large wooden doors deeper into his machine "I think I've got some flares somewhere we can use to attract someone's attention"


	3. Chapter 2

A few miles away a small helicopter flew in the darkness the only source of light is that coming from its tail and fuselage so any other approaching aircraft could see it in the dead of night.

The middle of the ocean, they just had to place this thing in the middle of the ocean. Leon S. Kennedy thought to himself as he looked out of the window. The helicopter blades swung rapidly above him keeping the coptfer and its passengers away from the inky black sea. Far, far below them the ocean rolled on never staying still always moving, always doing something appearing to do nothing but you just don't know what's going on underneath the surface. Just like Umbrella, it seems no matter how much evidence they brought up against that pharmaceutical company, Umbrella always manages to survive in one form or another. Especially after the misery and destruction they have caused to the world.

Leon had been there when it had all started, when Umbrella turned a peaceful town into a nightmare, and he walked right into it. Nearly six years ago he had arrived in Racoon City as a rookie cop on his first day, what he didn't know was that Racoon City was being quartered off due to a dangerous viral infection but somehow he managed to unwittingly slip straight through and arrive in the nightmarish town which had been pretty much controlled by the Umbrella corporation. He remembered that night well it had been welded into his brain, the one night where life turned from the usual challenges to a desperate struggle for survival.

The viral outbreak wasn't a simple epidemic like a bad case of the flue and it didn't spread like a normal disease would. You could become infected only by close contact with another infected person but only after said person was dead. The solution would've been pretty simple then, just keep away from dead bodies but the virus made things that much harder, because the dead bodies didn't stay dead, the corpses got up and started chasing you. Slowly he'd admit, you could out walk them but they had many advantages over whoever they were chasing. They couldn't feel pain at all, break an arm off and they hardly felt it they still kept coming. They couldn't be reasoned with because they had little or no intelligence except what is needed to use their limbs to walk, grab, bite and to understand one thing, their need to feed and for some reason they only craved human flesh as if only this would suffice their hunger.

Gun shots would have no effect whatsoever, aim for most areas like the legs to disable and they hardly flinched, aim for the heart and destroy it and they still kept coming. The only way to kill them was for the brain to be destroyed by any means necessary. Racoon City had been crawling with these things, on every street corner there were these 'zombie' like creatures.

But they weren't the only nightmare out on the streets of Racoon City, Umbrella's virus which was called the T-virus also caused hideous mutations to appear. Throughout the night he was plagued by a large collection of freakish monsters some with piercing sharp tongues, poisonous mobile plants, zombie dogs –literally dogs infected with the T-virus- an indestructible man who was almost impossible to kill, and a creature who simply kept mutating every time he was killed each time becoming something more dangerous and terrifying.

Leon had managed to escape Racoon City with the help of Clair Redfield who he met in the same situation as he was, just arrived in the city with no clue what was going on or where to go. She was looking for her brother Chris Redfield who Umbrella wanted out of the way, but unfortunately Chris had already left Racoon City to search another Umbrella establishment in Europe.

Leon and Clair also brought with them Sherry Birkin, the daughter of one of the research scientists in the secret Umbrella lab. Everyone wanted to get their hands on her because she was carrying a sample of new virus simply called the G-virus which Umbrella wanted and was prepared to kill for. 'G' was the whole reason that the T-virus outbreak occurred. Umbrella had sent soldiers to steal the G-virus from its creator, William Birkin, Sherry's father but an accident caused samples of T-virus to spread throughout the city.

Leon had seen to it that all samples of 'G' they had with them were destroyed so this outbreak never happened again. They escaped using a train from a secret lab in the bowels of Racoon City and had only just managed to get out just in time, had they stayed for another day they would've been caught up in the destruction of Racoon City. The US government had dropped a nuclear bomb on the city to destroy the outbreak and any risk of it spreading beyond the city limits, however it also destroyed any evidence of Umbrella's virus research and evidence of the entire outbreak so making a case against Umbrella was difficult for everyone, until then Umbrella continued it's research into whatever twisted experiments they had lined up next.

When they had escaped Raccoon City Clair had gone off in search of her brother Chris and he didn't know what had happened to her since then. Sherry came with him and was intending to look after her, but they were picked up by government agents who locked Leon up and taken Sherry away. They wanted Leon to work with them as a special operative because he was one of the few survivors to escape Racoon City, that and he'd taken on so many of Umbrella's Bio-Organic-Weapon's and survived uninfected.

He'd accepted the job offer and spent years of training working his way up and going on several classified missions until he was classed as one of the best agents in the Government, and that's how he's ended up here, in the middle of the ocean with three other operatives to investigate what would be classed as a routine matter. The coast guard had lost contact with a cruise ship which sailed the Atlantic for most of the year, coming close to land only once or twice for fresh supplies from smaller boats, which was odd because wherever it docked the sea wasn't so shallow that it would beach itself, but still it kept its distance. Contact had been lost only a few days ago and since then it's been floating around with the current. What didn't make this a routine matter was who owned the vessel, Umbrella.

The US government had its suspicions that Umbrella used this vessel, the Cairo as a mobile research laboratory if this was true then if the ship beached itself somewhere on the US coast then it might spread another of Umbrella's viruses and create another incident like in Racoon City.

"ETA 5 minutes" came the voice of their pilot, who they simply knew as Kaufman. The other two were like Leon special agents, Tyrell and Conner both had years of experience but neither of them has even faced off against a horde of zombies and mutant freaks before, he only met them when his commanding officer introduced them and set them up for this mission.

Their objective was to secure the ship, discover why they stopped, the reason for the radio blackout and what this ship is doing in the middle of the North Atlantic. If it was the worst case scenario, and it probably was if Umbrella was involved then they were to destroy any unidentified liquids and recover any documents which might implicated Umbrella in any illegal genetic experiments.

Something suddenly shot out from the surface of the ocean, at first Leon feared it was an air cruise missile but when it exploded in the air with a slight bang he relaxed. It was a rocket, who was firing rockets? Was it from the Cairo? Were they signalling for help?

A dark shape appeared on the horizon lit up by the falling rocket, as they approached it formed into the shape of a large cruise liner which started coming out of the blackness like a ghost ship. Leon had expected to see lights on the horizon when they approached the ship but there was nothing at all, the lights were off in all its portholes and the bridge was dark, even the lights around the smoke stack were not visible and these were mandatory for a ship to have for safety reasons.

Another rocket was fired into the air and exploded again with a louder bang this time, could they hear the helicopter blades and were signalling for help? A slight knot started to form in Leon's stomach, it might just be paranoia but he had a feeling he was about to walk right into another nightmare.


	4. Chapter 3

Lucie Miller stood back from the TARDIS exit door as the Doctor set up what looked like a mortar for lobbing grenades at the enemy in war films. The heavy TARDIS doors opened inwards which made the already cool temperature of the large room plummet as the freezing Atlantic air blew in. The Doctor loaded a rocket into the pipe device and leveled it so it would fire its projectile out the doors. They were using a mortar because they or rather then Doctor couldn't find anything more suitable for firing rockets out of.

The mortar didn't look like ones she'd seen in war films or in museums it looked a little more high-tech. The Doctor explained as they walked back to the console room that he got it from –he had hesitated to use the word 'stole'- from the year 2122, apparently it was the property of another time traveler who wanted to change history by killing a member of Earth's government. The Doctor then launched into an explanation on how this would've affected the future of earth and indeed this mysterious 'web of time' he kept talking about whenever changes in time came into their adventures. But Lucie got the answer she wanted in the end, that the mortar looked high-tech because it didn't rely on gun powder or high explosives but a high pressure system connected to it. The Doctor could at times rabbit on a bit.

She was feeling motion sickness again, as she looked outside the TARDIS doors she could see the dark starry sky which was constantly shifted position as the TARDIS exterior shell was buffeted by the waves outside while the interior remained calm and level.

"Stand back" said the Doctor as he lit his third rocket and stepped back as it fired out through the doors and up into the air where it exploded in a shower of sparks like a firework.

She decided it must look really funny for anyone who was looking down into the TARDIS while it was at this angle, not just because the box would appear bigger on the inside but because they would see two people who appeared to be standing halfway up a wall as if it was the floor and from her point of view it was the floor.

The Doctor, after the third rocket, went up to the exit, knelt down at the threshold of the TARDIS and grabbed the edge of the Police Box shell and stuck his head out into the scene outside. It was obvious why he had to grip the TARDIS threshold, so gravity wouldn't force him back inside. This was a pretty confusing idea to Lucie that if you tried to step outside the TARDIS as it was now then gravity would try to pull you back down inside it. But as soon as you entered the TARDIS again you'd be forced back to the 'floor'. She decided not to think of this, though she could understand what would happen she couldn't get her head around the how.

"We're moving away" the Doctor said pulling his head back inside the TARDIS.

"Didn't they see the rockets you fired?" Lucie asked

"They should've but I'm starting to think there is no one onboard" the Doctor stood mussing

"Why would someone abandon a floating ship in the middle of the ocean?" Lucie asked as if the Doctor's idea was stupid

"Ever heard of the Mary Celest?" the Doctor asked as he moved back towards the console and flipped a switch which closed the exterior doors. "There we don't want her to roll over and fill with water while we're away."

"Of course I've heard of the Mary Celest and…" she paused as the Doctor's next sentence registered "where are we going?"

"Back to the storage room" he said as be began walking back towards the large interior door.

"What for? What makes you think there's no one on board the ship?" she asked as she ran to catch him.

"Because the lights are off in all the port holes, no experienced crew man would leave his ship completely blacked out in the middle of the ocean." The Doctor explained as he lead her through the labyrinth of corridors and rooms that made up the whole interior space of the TARDIS. The Doctor said the interior could be the size of a small city, as if he wasn't sure, and it felt like one because it took them ten minutes to get to the storage room he wanted to get to. They had passed several other storage rooms on the way there but they were all filled with other bits and pieces of useless junk some of which had a thick layer of dust covering them. Has he never heard of 'spring cleaning' or a vacuum cleaner?

As they entered the correct storage room the Doctor began pushing boxes out of the way, despite the place being in complete disarray the Doctor seemed to know exactly where the object he wanted was. He put one heavy looking box on top of a tower of them and they overbalanced and fell to the floor in a heap. The boxes kicked up a bit of dust which was collecting on them before the Doctor disturbed them.

Lucie waving her arms to clear the air, she sneezed. She noticed a few of the boxes had split open as they landed and Lucie could see a pile of electronic gadgets the function of which she could only guess.

"All this high-tech machinery and you don't even own a Hoover?" she said.

"Ah ha!" came the Doctor's voice triumphant as he held in his hands an outboard motor like one you'd fit to the back of fishing boat. He handed it to Lucie who nearly collapsed under the weight of it.

"What do we want this for?" she asked as the Doctor picked up something else, a long reel of rope, attached to which was a grappling hook. Then she put two and two together. "Wait a minute are you doing what I think you're going to do?"

"That I'm going to use the outboard to bring the TARDIS closer to the ship and then use the grappling hook to climb up on board?" he asked, Lucie just nodded. "No of course not" came his reply, but then what was the point of the two things? The Doctor swapped the heavy outboard motor so Lucie held the rope and grappling hook while he carried the much heavier outboard on both his arms.

"I'm going to use the outboard to bring the TARDIS closer, 'then' use he grapple hook to tether the TARDIS to the ship 'then' climb up it" he said as he whirled around and began walking back towards the control room.

"But that's the same as… oh forget it" The Doctor was just being flippant again.

The Doctor had attached the outboard motor to the roof of the TARDIS and operated it as he sat down over the police box sign on the front of the box. Lucie stuck her head outside the TARDIS for a brief second so she could see what she was getting in for. The water was about a third the way up the side of the TARDIS which was good because otherwise the outboards short propeller wouldn't have reached the sea otherwise.

With a couple of tugs at the motor cord it sprang and coughed to life with a rumble which became much less as soon as the Doctor dipped the propeller into the sea. They began moving forwards towards the dark ship, progress was slow at first because the box like shape of the TARDIS meant it wasn't going to cut through the sea as effectively as a pointed boat shape.

As they got nearer Lucie discovered that the ship was not painted black as she had suspected but was in fact white and its name could be clearly seen in gold letters on the bow, 'Cairo'

When they stopped with a slight impact into the ship which nearly caused the TARDIS to roll over, Lucie handed the Doctor the grappling hook, one end of the rope had been tied to the base of the TARDIS console so when it caught the box wouldn't drift away.

The Doctor gave the hook a little slack and lowered it a little over the edge. Lucie ducked back inside the ship as he began whirling it over his head like a cowboy with a lasso. It whirled around his head incredibly fast before he let go, allowed it to fly up into the air and fall straight back down into the sea with a splash.

"Hmm, nice going Doctor" Lucie mocked as the Doctor reeled it back in for another try. As he was doing this the sound of the night, which was mostly filled with waves lapping against the TARDIS and the ship, as well as the noise of the TARDIS gently impacting the ship, was broken by a much louder noise. They both looked upwards to see what it was. The noise was the rotor blades of a helicopter which was coming in to land at the aft of the ship a big bright search light kept illuminating the aft deck.

"Who do you think they are then?" she shouted over the loud blades which despite being about 50 meters away were kicking up quite a gust.

"Could be the coast guard" the Doctor shouted as he now held the grappling hook in his hand again, he tried the same trick again to get it up the side of the ship, but failed to get it high enough to catch on anything but the hull of the ship. Lucie had seen when the search light illuminated the ship that the hook would never reach so far up if the Doctor kept trying to throw it up like that.

"Doctor you'll never get that hook all the way up there like that" she said as she took the grappling hook from him and disappeared back into the TARDIS.

"Lucie what are you…?" he began to ask peering down into his machine when he saw Lucie load the grappling hook into the mortar. She then began fiddling with the controls before the Doctor could protest. She pulled down a lever and hissing noise started to come from it.

"How do you work this thing anyway…" it fired out of the mortar nearly hitting the Doctor in the face but it narrowly missed as he leaned back out of the way. The grappling hook soared into the air with much greater force then the Doctor could manage by himself the rope flying after it. A loud clang indicated it had caught on something and the way the rope hung told them it wasn't going to come loose.

"I think that's another point to me, ay Doctor?" Lucie said her lips upturned into a slight smug smile.

"Yes, well… good work" he said clearly lost for words and tried to disguise it by giving the rope a couple of tugs to make sure it was absolutely secure. "Right, I'll go first then you follow" he said as he began climbing the rope.

"Hang on a bleeding minute!" Lucie shouted "I'm not dressed for climbing!" she regarded her attire which was a pair of jeans, trainers and a blue hoodie with the hood down.

"You know where the wardrobe is" he called back continuing to climb the steep rope which he managed at a considerable rate which surprised her. Lucie stamped her foot and walked away to the wardrobe. It was then the Doctor noticed as he was halfway along the rope that the engines of the helicopter had been shut off. Whoever had landed on this ship, they weren't in any hurry to leave.


	5. Chapter 4

**Authors note:** For Leon this story takes place between Operation Javier in the 'Dark side Chronicles' and Resident Evil 4

* * *

The helicopter landed on the helipad with a loud clunk as the metal runners made contact with the pad. While on the way down they had seen one other rocket fired from somewhere but at the closer ranger they were at it looked more like it was coming from just behind the Cairo rather then actually from it. Conner said it was something to do with the curvature of the earth but Leon wasn't so sure.

When they came into land they pointed a bright search light at the helipad so they could see what they were landing on and if anyone or indeed anything was on the helipad waiting for them. They couldn't see anything from where they were but Leon didn't know if he felt better or worse because of that.

Leon, Conner and Tyrell exited the chopper and un-holstered their weapons ready for anything. They had been equipped by the US government with heavier weapons like AK-47's rather then the standard nine millimeters pistols they were usually issued with because of the potential danger if this turned out to be a worst case scenario. A light had been fitted to each barrel so they could see what they were potentially shooting at in this darkness and since this ship had no lights on anywhere, not even the helipad then they were going to need them.

Ahead of them was a great set of steel double steel doors, a bit heavy duty Leon decided and probably not part of the original ships décor and appeared to be in lockdown mode, but it could easily be hacked into and persuaded to open by Conner, who prided himself as a master hacker.

Conner was a tall man a few inches taller then himself with short brown hair and a roundish face. He approached the door as Kaufman the pilot cut the engine and the rotor blades slowly began dying down. Conner shone his light on the key pad display to get a good look at it, his face frowned and Leon could see why. The key pad had been disconnected, the front had been wrenched off and all its innards ripped out, this would've engaged all the safety protocols and locked down the doors making hacking or even re-wiring impossible.

"What the hell happened here?" Conner said as the chopper engines died down to nothing.

"Look's like someone took a can opener to the thing" said Tyrell in a very rough voice.

"Can you short circuit it?" Leon asked as he walked over to stand next to the sealed door.

"I might be able to, I don't know" Conner said "But we could blow it open with explosives"

"Too dangerous" Leon said "Those doors are far too heavy for a simple grenade and if we went any larger we'd probably risk damaging the helicopter or the helipad" if they lost the helicopter then they were stuck her, though they could get Kaufman to take off again and blow the doors but it would still potentially damage the helipad and there wasn't another ideal surface on the rest of the ship to land a helicopter.

"Agreed, is there another entrance?" Tyrell asked, but he never got an answer because they all jumped into battle mode as soon as they heard a loud 'clang' somewhere below deck, then a mild scrapping noise which slowly became nothing.

They remained quiet and waited for that noise to come again, but it didn't. Using complex commando style hand signals Leon instructed Kaufman to stay in the chopper and Conner to continue working on that door while he and Tyrell investigated that noise. He hoped it wasn't what he thought it was but he knew that hope wasn't going to hold out.

Leon and Tyrell both approached a set of metal stairs which lead down from the side of the helipad to the next deck down. Their feet made a light clangs when their boots made contact with the steps as they slowly made their way down to the next, darker deck.

When they got on the next deck which was completely covered by the helipad, they swung their weapons around to see what was under the landing pad. Nothing, through the mess of pipes which held up the helipad they couldn't see anything. What had made that clanking noise? It must still be on this deck. He tried to tell his brain it was probably a loose hatch swinging in the gentle breeze but his brain wouldn't listen. It was dark and silent down here except for the light roar of waves over the side of the rail. They took a few steps forward under the helipad at any moment expecting to see a very ill looking man lumbering towards them or something worse, Leon shone his flash light on the underside of the helipad expecting to see one of those genetic freaks he saw in Raccoon City but there was nothing there.

"You think it's one of those things you told us about?" Tyrell asked quietly moving very slowly in case the enemy should attack them by surprise from the darkness.

"I don't know" was all Leon said, he'd informed them of what they could be up against but he found it difficult to tell if they were actually taking him seriously. How could you explain to a small group of trained government agents that they might be facing zombies back from the dead or genetically created monsters from their darkest nightmares, they seemed to accept it but only very lightly. If they thought killing a group of those things would be as easy to kill as taking down a group of ordinary humans then they were dead wrong.

Something shot up from behind them and landed with a 'clank' sound on the deck they both spun around to see what had caused the impact. It was a grappling hook, attached to which was a length of rope which disappeared over the railing. The hook then slid back causing a loud dragging noise before it caught itself the rail. The rope then became taught as if something was hauling itself upwards towards them.

Both Leon and Tyrell pointed their weapons at where their foe would come up, Leon's mind rushed to think what it could be. A hand gripped the rail, it was thin and pale but there was no way this was a zombie, they didn't understand climbing. Then came another hand which gripped the rail and then a thin face popped up from over the side.

"Ah hello!" he said in a cheery sounding British accent

"Hold you're fire!" Leon said to Tyrell, whoever this man was he clearly wasn't a mutation as far as he could tell he looked perfectly human as he climbed over the edge of the rail, he had the right number of arms and legs at least and he wasn't missing any patches of skin, which was a good sign. His face was clean-shaven and his head was covered by long locks of un-kept hair, though his clothes were a little unorthodox. A long green velvet frock coat with waistcoat and other assortments of clothes which wouldn't look out of place a hundred years ago.

"Much obliged for not shooting me on sight" the man said as he got to his feet and brushed himself down, though both Leon and Tyrell didn't take their weapons off him off him for a second.

"Identify yourself!" Tyrell said making sure this man understood he could end his life with one pull on the trigger. The mans head turned to look down at Tyrells gun barrel which pointed straight at him but strangely this man did not appear frightened or shocked to have a gun in his face. In fact his face gently smiled like he was a child enjoying an amusing game.

"I'm usually called the Doctor, and who might you be?" Leon didn't know what to make of this strange man's manner, neither him nor Tyrell were used to this. Usually they point a gun at someone they either breakdown or they stand tall, impassive and refuse to answer like a tough solider. But this strange man, the Doctor was talking to them and regarding them as if he'd just met a couple of friend in the street.

"We are asking the questions!" Tyrell said sternly "And that's not good enough, give us your name, rank and your affiliation with Umbrella" the Doctor seemed to be considering what to say before he answered.

"The Doctor, none and they are useful to keep your head dry in the rain." _Does he think this is a joke?_ was the first thought that Leon came into his head. This didn't make sense to him, was this guy infected with a virus or something? No, Umbrella wouldn't develop something which made the infected impassive. Or maybe that was the point if they were impassive then they wouldn't be a threat.

"You've just arrived I see" the Doctor said "I saw your helicopter land. As you see I have just arrived though by less dignified means"

"What do you mean you've just arrived?" Tyrell said gesturing with his gun again that the Doctor wasn't in the best of places to make jokes, but still he didn't act as if this was a threat to him.

"Just that" the Doctor said walking over to the side of the ship and peering down.

"Don't think of jumping!" Tyrell barked at him

"Now that would pretty much defeat the objective of climbing up here wouldn't it?" he said regarding them with a look which told them jumping would be the very last thing he wanted to do but it was not out of fear of being shot, he genuinely wanted to be here. "See down there" he said pointing down over the rail "That's how I arrived"

Still unsure what to make of this guy Tyrell kept him covered as Leon, still pointing his rifle at the Doctor edged his way to the side of the ship and peered down. The long rope disappeared down the side of the ship and appeared to enter a big dark coloured box which had an outboard motor attached to the outside. There was an opening in the box, from which a dim light could be seen emanating from inside.

Leon gently laughed "You arrived in that?" he gestured with his head.

"Naturally" he said "In fact I'd be grateful if you could help me bring that box onboard, only my friend is still inside it and she's not in a condition to pull herself up the rope."

"Shut up" Tyrell said slowly before speaking to Leon "I say should shoot him now, he's of no use to us"

"Easy Tyrell" Leon said, he had seen many strange and terribly, horrifying things whenever Umbrella had been involved, but the Doctor seemed to be the first thing he'd seen that was 'strange' but apparently none threatening. This told him that he could potentially trust this man, but then again he had the same feeling with Ada and she… Now wasn't the time to think about her.

His attention turned to the long coat he wore, there didn't appear to be any room in his pockets to conceal any hidden weaponry. Plus there was something about his manner that told him he was no threat.

The only reason he half believed his story about arriving in that box is that he couldn't think of a likely alternative. If he had jumped ship, for example, for any reason why did he return? If he worked for Umbrella and had been sent here then why not arrive by chopper? Or speed boat? Why choose what looked like a square crate with a motor on it? If they were dropped by a plane or helicopter then surely Kaufman would've picked something up on the radar system as they approached. This wasn't to say he trusted the Doctor at all, there were several loose ends to his story, like the main point why he was here and why was he travelling in such a strange object.

"If you're not employed by the Umbrella Corporation then…" Leon began

"Oh, you meant a corporation called Umbrella" the Doctor interrupted as if this was a revelation to him.

"What are you doing here? On the Cairo in the middle of the North Atlantic?" he finished his question.

"Oh just a slight malfunction with my craft" he said "crash landed here a while ago and we spotted this mysterious ship and made our way towards it"

"Your plane crashed here?" Leon asked, the strange man looked like he was considering that answer before saying.

"Yes, in a manner of speaking"

Leon didn't know if to believe that, it was possible he had crashed earlier on in the day and spotted the Cairo while floating around in his box. "Was it you who fired those rockets?"

"Oh yes, I thought there might've been someone left onboard this ship but I've been unable to make contact, it's like the Mary Celeste" it would've made sense for them to fire rockets at the ship to try to attract it's attention, though it was possible that they fired those flares from the ship to attract their attention and lure them down, but then why the set up with the Doctor climbing over the ship from a box? No that last theory didn't hold water either, everything seemed to favor his version of events but there was one thing that still confused Leon right now.

"What's with the fancy clothes?" Leon asked gesturing with his gun at the Doctors eccentric attire. If he was flying why wear something like that? The only explanation he could see was if he actually came from the ship in the first place. "Why dress like that when you're flying?" he asked again as the Doctor looked down at his feet observing his own clothes he was wearing before answering simply and apparently honestly "Because I can."

* * *

Satisfied that the Doctor was no threat both Leon and Tyrell relaxed their guard with him but still kept a close eye peeled in case of any trouble. Tyrell had searched the Doctor for any concealed weapons or objects, finding none they escorted the Doctor to the helipad where Kaufman and Conner were waiting for them. When they caught sight of the Doctor Conner stopped what he was doing and Kaufman opened the helicopter door to get a better look at him.

"Who's he?" came Kaufmans voice as he looked at the Doctor who he came up the steps followed by Tyrell.

"We don't know" Tyrell said "He just climbed over the side from a small box in the sea"

The Doctor pushed past him and held out his hands to shake Kaufmans which he uneasily did.

"Hello" he said again cheerily "I'm the Doctor"

"Kaufman" he said clearly looking confused at both the Doctor's strange behavior and strange attire. "Is there a fancy dress ball or something?" he asked.

"Unfortunately I have only just arrived onboard" he said as he let go of Kaufmans hand "My craft crashed and…"

Tyrell had pointed his gun at the Doctor and cocked it as a indication for him to shut up, which the Doctor.

"I still don't trust you, limey!" he said swinging his gun to get the Doctor away from the helicopter "Get away from the chopper and stand where I can see you"

The Doctor aloofly held up his hands and stepped away from the chopper. He acted as if he was used to it and despite being threatened and having guns pointed at him he seemed… he didn't know if this was just Leons interpretation of it but he seemed… disappointed somehow. It was probably just him but that's how this strang Brit seemed to be behaving as if this was a great game he was dissatisfied with. Taking is attention away from the Doctor, Leon walked up to Conner who was still curious about this strange man.

"How's the door coming Conner?" Leon asked to break the awkward situation, Conner turned back to the mess of wires from the panel.

"I can't fix this, the things too badly damaged even if I could trip the door the heavier blast doors will remain closed."

"Let me take a look" before either Leon or Tyrell could stop him the Doctor had stepped forward to inspect the door panel. Tyrell cocked and pointed his weapon at the Doctor ready to fire but Leon held up one hand to restrain Tyrell, but made sure he understand to fire if he did anything foolish. Conner looked at the Brit with a mixture of fascination and confusion.

"I'm a master hacker and I've tried every trick in the book" he said with a hint of pride in his voice as the Doctor continued to inspect the wiring "it won't open"

"Fortunately, I know a few tricks they never put in that book" the Doctor said inspecting the door further. Leon just stood watching this unusual person. There were no other entrances and exits to the ship from the helipad so if they wanted to get inside it would mean abseiling down the side of the ship and breaking a window to crawl through. The only problem with that is they wouldn't know what they would be breaking into and running into and if they needed to retreat it wouldn't be the most ideal escape route. But if this man could open the main door from the helipad it would improve their situation.

"You know it's curious how these wires were severed" the Doctor was saying to Conner under his breath "Almost as if they were ripped out… or bitten"

"Can you open it?" Leon enquired as the Doctor continued to inspect the broken pad, though he took what the Doctor said onboard he wasn't going to take his word as gospel.

"Oh yes, I can open it" he said, Conner scoffed at this.

"Then do it!" said Tyrell who had not for one moment taken his gun off the Doctor.

"Ah now you see we have an impasse." He said holding up his arms again a small smile crept onto his thin face "You need me to open these doors, while I need you to bring my TAR…" he stopped himself as if he was about to say too much "to bring the crate onboard"

"Open the door or I'll shoot you" said Tyrell again taking a menacing step closer to the Doctor but still the Brit regarded him as something more amusing then dangerous.

"Ah, but then you'll never get the door open" the Doctor said as if he had won.

"We could just kill you and blow the doors off the thing with high explosives!" Tyrell said, though he knew full well that was a very bad idea as Leon had explained. But he was obviously banking on the Doctor not thinking of that, he was going to be disappointed.

"Not a very good idea" the Doctor said "a blast to destroy that door would be so large it might destroy your helicopter and the helipad, and since you are so far into the North Atlantic I doubt your helicopter has the fuel to take off and circle around the ship for you to finish what you're doing here and still have enough to get you back to dry land."

Tyrell still held his gun at the Doctor but he looked like he couldn't think of what to say next, Leon could tell Tyrell was genuinely annoyed at this Doctor. Leon hadn't known Tyrell long but it struck him that maybe Tyrell was used to bullying people on missions into doing what he wanted when he had the upper hand, but the Doctor wasn't fitting into his view no matter how he threatened him. Leon had to admit he was a slightly impressed by the way the Doctor managed to talk his way out of this situation using logic, but then again that also disturbed him, they didn't exactly know how well they could trust him, if he was with then or against them. He was right about blowing up the doors though this far into the Atlantic they couldn't afford to damage the helipad or the helicopter wouldn't have a good surface to land on again. Leon was starting to get suspicious of him, his eyes showed a bright intelligence but Leon wondered if he was coming up with anymore little tricks and strategies like someone playing chess and they were the pieces. He had to admit he was curious about that box in the sea and the strange light which came from inside it.

"Okay Doctor" he said "We'll bring your crate onboard"

"Marvelous" he said as he turned around back to the door, he wasn't even going to insist that they recover his crate 'first'? This was something Leon did no expect at all the Doctor was just going to take Leon's word for it that he was going to recover that odd box?

The Doctor's right hand dove into an inside pocket of his coat and he pulled from it a silver looking tube with a red circle attachment at the top. At the sight of it Tyrell raised his gun.

"What is that?" he demanded, "Where did you get it? It wasn't in you're coat when I searched you"

"My skeleton key" he said adjusting something at its base "open's all doors… and you probably weren't looking hard enough"

"Drop it and kick it over here!" Tyrell demanded but as he said these words a high pitched squeal came from the end of the device and at first Leon thought it was some sort of method of attack, something to attack their hearing centers. Another sound much softer and heavier came, like large metal bars being shifted, came from inside the door and in the next moment it practically flew open as both doors parted revealing a dark corridor inside. The squealing stopped and the Doctor had placed the device back into his pocket while the other three stood in amazement that he managed to open the door with little effort at all.

"Now... I'm sorry I didn't catch your name" the Doctor said now addressing Leon.

"Leon Kennedy" he found himself saying without actually thinking about it.

"Well Leon" he said clapping his hands together "since I kept up my side of the bargain could you bring my crate onboard now? Please?"

* * *

**I hope the characters are interesting and that I've got Leon's personality correct I only had Resident Evil 4 to go on and since his personality was different from what it was in RE 2.**

**Hope you're enjoying the story so far**


	6. Chapter 5

Lucie Miller entered the TARDIS console room again this time wearing a thick rain coat and hood over her usual clothes, she'd also put on a pair of thick gloves she'd found in the Doctor's workshop which she could use to climb the rope so not to suffer any rope burns to her delicate fingers.

The TARDIS doors had closed again she noticed, trapping the very taught rope between the heavy doors. She went over to the console and flipped the switch which would allow the doors to swing open. But they didn't move. She tried flipping the switch again but still the doors remained perfectly shut. Was she pressing the right control? She wondered as she walked around the console being carful to step over the wire tied at its base.

That was the door switch alright, how many times had she seen the Doctor flip it, how many times had she flipped it and it opened the doors so why wasn't it doing it now? Was the stupid TARDIS malfunctioning again? She flipped it again and still nothing happened. Was it something to do with the trapped rope or what? Making her way around the controls to see if anything gave away why the ship was being awkward again, awkward? She was starting to think like the TARDIS was alive now. Something at the other side of the console caught her attention, moving to the other side Lucie saw the TARDIS scanner screen along which in bright white letters over a black background were the words.

**WARNING**

**EXTERIOR CURRENTLY IN MOTION**

**SAFTEY PROCEEDURE #15 IN OPERATION**

**EXIT OPENING OVERRIDE**

What was that supposed to mean, 'Exterior in motion'? They were being rocked by the ocean but the TARDIS hadn't closed the doors then. Had it taken off, had the TARDIS taken off with her still inside it and the Doctor stuck on a ship in the middle of the ocean?

A new set of words flashed along the screen this time it read.

**T-T CAPSULE TYPE 40 RIGHTED**

**SELF RIGHTING SYSTEM DISENGAGED**

The room suddenly started moving again, from left to right but very gently, much more gently then when they were travelling. The floor gave a final jolt before everything settled down again.

The scanner screen now read.

**T-T CAPSULE STATIONARY**

**EXIT OPENING OVERRIDE DISENGAGED**

Whatever the TARDIS had been doing it evidently had just stopped. She looked down at the controls trying to think which control turned the scanner back to the view outside. Why couldn't the Doctor ever label these stupid controls? There was something marked as 'fast return switch' but that didn't sound like something which changed the scanner settings. She didn't want to press any of the controls she was unsure of incase the TARDIS did something she'd regret like rip the universe in half or something.

She settled for opening the doors and taking a look outside, so she tried the door control again and sure enough the TARDIS doors gently swung open, the trapped rope slackened and fell to the floor as they did. She didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one, the rope was supposed to tether the time machine to the ship so why was it slacker? No water rushed coming in so that was a good sign at least.

She approached the doors quickly and stepped into the black void that apparently existed between the interior doors and exterior doors. Taking the right wooden exterior Police Box door in her hand she wrenched it open and stepped out onto what she assumed was the deck of the ship, a great wind blew at her hood and a loud whirling racket assaulted her ear drums.

"Doctor, I don't know what you're game is but…" a couple of clicks came from in front of her as two men pointed the barrels of a pair of machine guns at her head. "No, no don't shoot!" she said quickly holding up her hands to show she was unarmed and harmless.

"Might I introduce my friend Lucie Miller" came the cocky voice of none other then the Doctor, what had he gotten them into this time? He moved gently between the two men and gently pushed their guns away from her. One of the men, a tall man with black hair regarded the Doctor with hostility after he just pushed his gun away but appeared to be restraining himself.

Lucie decided to push herself away from the two men before they decided it was better to kill her. It was then she registered what that loud whirling noise from above was, the sound of whirling helicopter blades and she turned around and looked up to see that helicopter they'd seen while floating in the sea, it was coming back in to land next to the TARDIS. Dangling from the bottom of the helicopter was a long cable and harness which they had obviously used to scoop the TARDIS out of the water and drop it down here.

The helicopter landed with a clank and the blades wound down. There were four of these men, two of them who had been pointing the guns at her and she could see as the helicopter came into land as its bright search light illuminated their features that one was the tall man with the short black hair and a heavily weathered face and an impressive muscular build. He appeared to have a scar on his face which ran parallel to his right eyebrow and on his black uniform was the name Tyrell.

The other was slightly shorter with short brown hair a round, weathered face though not as weathered as Tyrells, his name tag read Conner. The third man gave a military style tactical signal to the man in the helicopter, probably because it the sound of the rotor blades were now too loud to hear anyone speak, the man in the pilots seat gave a thumbs up to say everything was 'okay' and he cut the engine.

The man in the helicopter was hard to see as he wore a helmet over his head with a microphone circling around to his mouth and a glass visor over his eyes. From his mouth he seemed to be sprouting a walrus style, bushy mustache along with a short goatee style beard.

Lucie then got a good look at the other bloke, he was about as tall as the Doctor, wore the same uniform as the other three, his face still looked youthful about mid twenties she'd guess and his head sprouted a mop of light brown-ish hair parted in the middle. He seemed to be regarding the TARDIS with a little more curiosity then Lucie was actually comfortable with.

She turned back to the Doctor and asked directly "What trouble have you gotten us into now?"

* * *

Leon regarded this strange blue crate with fascination, when it was bobbing up and down in the sea it looked like an ordinary crate, a little unusual in design but he never thought of it as anything more then a crate. Now that it was standing in front of him he could see it looked more like a cross between a phone booth and a small house.

Though it was as tall as a phone booth but it was about twice the size of an ordinary sized one. It looked like it could accommodate about three people at once and its design was very boxy with several inwardly pressed panels, eight on each side arranged in two neat vertical lines. The top two panels on each side were replaced with small bared windows which seemed to emit a slight glow from behind them. The box also appeared to have a glass lamp on top of the roof which wasn't lit. A black sign at the top near the lamp read in white capital letters 'Police Public Call Box'. This sign was in place on all sides of the box above the panels.

The outboard motor still hung on the top of the box apparently fixed to the box's sign with the propeller pointing upwards, giving its different design he assumed the outboard was not originally designed to be part of it.

One side appeared to have two inward opening doors with a pair of handles, one for each door at different levels though the one on the left door, looking at it, appeared to be fixed on the wrong side of the door and to a blue plaque which filled the third panel from the floor on that door. On it was a sign which read in white letters.

**POLICE TELEPHONE**

**FREE**

**FOR USE OF**

**PUBLIC**

**ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE**

**OBTAINABLE IMMEDIATELY**

**OFFICERS AND CARS**

**RESPOND TO URGENT CALLS**

**PULL TO OPEN**

But the doors opened inwards he saw them open inwards when that girl climbed out of it. Curious to see what it contained Leon stepped forward where the door stood slightly ajar as the girl had left it. His fingers made contact with the wooden door and he gentle pushed on it, but something pushed back on him and the door slammed shut, a clicking noise came which sounded like the box had locked itself.

He now didn't know what this box was but whatever it was it wasn't as simple or mundane as a crate, he registered as his hand remained on the closed doors that it seemed to be emitted a slight vibration as if it was alive.

"Who's G.I. Joe and his comrades?" came the voice of the girl, she sounded English maybe Scottish though he couldn't place the accent very well it sounded like a mixture of the two.

He turned to the girl who was young in her early twenties with long blond hair tied back into a pony tail. Her clothes were actually modern, unlike the Doctors and also unlike the Doctor she was dressed for the cold conditions of the North Atlantic in a warm looking rain coat.

"Names Leon Kennedy" he said, the appearance of this young girl changed some of his opinions about this Doctor. If he was looking after this young woman then he could understand why he might've been so flippant towards them he was trying to protect her by pushing himself into the line of fire. This made sense to him, when Sherry had been taken from him after the Raccoon City incident he had felt as if he had failed to protect her, but as far as he knew Sherry was being well cared for. He was glad about that because he didn't think he was ready for prenatal responsibilities even if it was just being a guardian.

"Yeah, and who's the trigger happy gorilla?" she asked.

Leon couldn't help giving a slight smile, she had an attitude and he was glad she was out of ear shot of Tyrell who seemed to regard anything and everything as a hostile. This might have been an advantage for him if he had been in Raccoon City at the time of the outbreak. But it was also a problem if he began firing at shadows and hit one of them by mistake. But he was a well trained government agent so he should know the difference.

After introductions between the girl, called Lucie Miller and the rest of the crew he turned back to the Doctor to discuss their plan to get them off the ship, their chopper could carry two more additional people though they had never expected to find survivors. But the Doctor was nowhere to be seen.

"Doctor?" he called out.

"Over here!" came his reply, he was by the door again examining the broken keypad again. Leon approached him what was he doing now? He'd already opened the door for them.

"Look here" the Doctor knelt down putting his hand on the floor. Leon couldn't see anything, it was too dark. He raised his gun but not to shoot the Doctor but to illuminate whatever the Doctor was looking at. While he did this he kept a close eye on the dark corridor beyond. They had checked it, before they brought the Doctor's crate onboard, it was empty but there was a door at the far end, and a door can be opened in either direction.

Leon took down again at what the Doctor had found they looked like drops, blood drops. He felt slightly relieved when he saw they way they had fallen, they didn't show any signs of being coagulated as they fell which meant whoever it came from had still been alive at the time.

"Blood drops" he said out loud to show he knew what it was.

"Quite a pool" the Doctor stated "I suppose this came from whoever ripped out the control panel"

He pointed to some drops which were a little further away.

"The shape of these drops show some directionality" he said as Leon took a closer look "Tear dropped shaped showing whoever did this went that way" The Doctor began moving away in his hunched position. He'd found more blood, a trail of it leading away towards the edge of the platform. Funny, so much blood and they didn't see it on the way down, but it was probably the bright light from the helicopter somehow masked them from the air, that had happened before. Leon readied his weapon though just incase.

The Doctor went to the very edge of the helipad where the blood pooled in one particular area at the very edge. It looked like whoever or whatever it was had decided to fall into the sea, and from the large pool he had been standing there for a while considering his fate. But did he jump, or did something change his mind for him?

The Doctor reached out and took something from the floor, he held it in his hand and stood up holding it between his thumb and index finger, a copper cylinder.

"The shell of a spent bullet" Leon stated, he looked at the Doctor and could see the cogs whirling in his head. He put a finger to his lips and his brow lowered in concentration.

"Suppose whoever ripped out the panel was injured, he stumbled over here apparently still bleeding probably dying then he shot himself" the Doctor summarized.

"It would seem that way" Leon said, it probably was exactly that.

"But if you're injured and dying why shoot yourself if you're going to die anyway?" he said turning to look back at the door "and why rip out the controls of the door and send the entire ship into lock down?"

"Don't forget they still haven't told us why they're here?" this came from Lucie who had walked over to join them "Don't mind leaving me with the 'Magilla the Gorilla' over there"

"That's actually a very good question Lucie" the Doctor said acting as if now Leon and his team were the ones under investigation "You haven't told us why exactly you are here anyway"

"We didn't shoot anyone here if that's what your suggestion" Leon said, why did he say that? The Doctor had no authority over the team, true though none of them had shot anyone or anything, yet. But why was he justifying himself to someone he hardly knew? "Anyway our mission is classified" he added quickly.

"Oh I know you didn't shoot anyone" the Doctor said looking back at the spent cartage casing. "This is a 4.5 caliber I estimate and by the look of your weapons you aren't carrying any type of gun which can fire a 4.5 caliber round, therefore you didn't do it."

Who was this man? Leon asked himself. He seemed to be analyzing every detail like a detective investigating a case. Was he a cop? A forensic detective? CSI? A special agent from the government or Umbrella? The last one was unlikely but possible, though Lucie looked like she was in her twenties Ada had also been in her twenties yet she… he put her out of his head again.

"Who exactly are you?" he asked "CIA? FBI? MI6?"

"I sort of work freelance" he said as he slid the spent round into his coat pocket.

* * *

**Authors notes:** I don't know a lot about guns so if I've made a mistake with the caliber of a gun feel free to correct me.


	7. Chapter 6

Whoever the wounded person who shot themselves was he or she was probably halfway down the bottom of the Atlantic or carried further away by the current. Either way it meant something was going on if people were shooting themselves in the brain. So far after landing here they have not seen a member of the research crew, whether hostile or not, not one person if you didn't count both the Doctor's and Lucie's strange arrival. So the rest of the crew must've been sealed inside the ship by whoever shot themselves out here, he decided.

Conner had gone back into the chopper and taken out a black metal box and opened it, inside were several black gas masks with a long pipe which snaked into a small box that contained an oxygen supply. They were going to use these incase any infections inside were air born. He didn't like entering into a mission ill prepared, but oxygen masks, body armor and a gun were all they needed.

"How's the oxygen supply?" Leon asked as Conner fitted a gas mask to his face, he had to loosen the straps a bit to enable it to fit over his larger then normal, oval face but it was snug and tight which perfect.

"It's coming through" he replied his oval face clear through the clear plastic window in the front of it "I can't smell anything".

"That's good" Leon replied "It means its working"

The gas masks they all carried were specially made for possible bio-hazard situations when handling dangerous chemicals. However in this case it was to prevent contamination of the team in case Umbrella was in fact doing any form of viral research here. If a virus was partially designed or even mutated to be air born then the masks would keep them safe as long as they didn't suffer any cuts or scratches which allowed access to the blood stream.

Tyrell picked up a gas mask from himself then picked up two extra gas masks, one for the Doctor and one for Lucie Miller. Leon didn't really want to bring the Doctor or Lucie into the ship in case of what they might find or incase of the reverse, what might find them. He was originally planning to leave them with the chopper, Kaufman had disabled it but it wasn't anything too serious, something he could easily remedy if evacuation became the option and with the helicopter disabled no on else could fly the chopper, but Tyrell was unwilling to allow the Doctor or Lucie to be left on their own with the teams only escape route and considering the Doctor was able to open a door a top hacker had trouble with, he might be able to fix the chopper without Kaufmans help. Leon then decided it best to bring them with him, neither the Doctor or Lucie seemed to have a problem with that. Lucie just looked annoyingly at the Doctor, who was smiling as if this was some great adventure he was on.

Tyrell tossed the masks to the Doctor and Lucie who both caught them rather clumsily because Tyrell more threw the masks 'at' them instead of towards them.

"What do we need these for?" Lucie asked as she held the black gas mask between her thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead squid.

"It's incase of a bio hazard situation" Leon said

"What do you mean Bio-hazard?" the Doctor asked as he fumbled to undo the straps on the back of his mask.

"I mean as in contagious, possibly fatal pathogens and viruses" he explained "There's an oxygen supply in there as well in case of emergencies"

"Tell me, what does this 'Umbrella Corporation' do? Since you mistook me for being an associate of it" the Doctor asked as he tried to put his gas mask on and was now having difficulty fixing the straps over his hair.

"You've never heard of Umbrella?" Leon asked not convinced.

"Have you been living under a rock? Everyone knows who Umbrella is" this came from Conner, whatever look he was giving the Doctor whether quizzical, perplexed or curious was hidden under the mask which unfortunately for him started to steam up a bit, but it would clear up in a few minutes.

"Umbrella Pharmaceuticals Incorporated you mean?" it was Lucie who asked this and the Doctor turned to her.

"That's them" Leon said coolly

The look on the Doctor's face made it look like he was surprised she knew about Umbrella when he didn't.

"It's a chemical company, Doctor, I went for a job interview at one of their buildings in London as a receptionist, didn't take me though, said me accent was too hard to understand" Lucie explained "They makes things like cosmetics, one of me mates used to use some of their products"

"They make more then just cosmetics" Conner said "Umbrella Pharmaceuticals is a mega corporation which creates thousands of other domestic products such as, as you have said cosmetics but it also has it's hands in other fields of research such as medical hardware, computers and defense systems"

"That's just its public face" Leon said with contempt "Umbrella has other industries which are strictly off the record."

"You mean illegal" the Doctor asked his voice muffled slightly by the gas mask, Leon just nodded "So what does this have to do with the Cairo?"

"It was bought up by the Umbrella corporation seven years ago from a Mediterranean shipping line" Conner explained "Umbrella refitted her in a dry dock in the states to be used as a mobile research facility and set her out to sail around in the Atlantic, she hardly ever came into port getting its supplies and personal on and off by helicopter"

"But what's wrong with building a lab on land?" Lucie asked "Why build a ship to sail around the Atlantic?"

It was Leon who answered this question after he had fitted his gas mask "The US government suspected that Umbrella used this craft for its illegal research, contact was lost with the ship a few days ago and we were sent to investigate why and to determine if any possible bio-hazardous substances they may be in development"

The Doctor never got to ask more questions as Leon took his rifle and turned to the other members of his party. "Tyrell, you're with me, Conner, Kaufman you bring up the rear with our guests"

Conner nodded his understand and a muffled 'yes sir' and Kaufman held his rifle ready and muffled another 'yes sir', his walrus mustache pressed up against the clear plastic making him look like a squid stuck in a small tank.

* * *

Leon and Tyrell began moving down the narrow black corridor, the lights fitted to the barrel of their guns illuminated the dark walls as they passed. They slowly drew nearer and nearer the inner doors which didn't look like they were electronically locked. Leon took the handle of one door while Tyrell took the handle of the other one and they flattened themselves against them. Leon held up his free hand and held up three fingers, he began lowering one at a time indicating a count down for them to open the doors. When he'd reached zero they both turned the handles and let the doors open a crack before flinging them open and immediately held their weapons at ready.

The flash lights on their barrels illuminated the corridor a head there were no hostiles in sight. Leon only wished he didn't have to fight in this condition because he could hardly see out of this stupid gas mask. They slowly made their way down the corridor, their lights caught the shadows of several doors along the corridor all of which were shut firmly, thankfully the creatures Leon 'didn't' want to find didn't have the intelligence to open doors so they were safe from an ambush, and even if were behind any doors they would be alerted by the creatures hammering on the door trying to get through.

Leon had an uneasy flashback to some of the dark corridors of the Raccoon City Police Department all those years ago, it had the same cold, damp feeling atmosphere and if he wasn't wearing a gas mask he was sure he'd be able to smell the odor of decaying bodies as well.

He turned back briefly to see if the Doctor and Lucie were alright with Conner and Kaufman brining up the rear. Lucie behaved like he expected, slightly frightened yet she tried to hide it and hid it quite well. As for the Doctor he still regarded the place as if there was no real danger to him. Leon started feeling nervous when people didn't look scared when they should be, in his experience it usually meant they were up to something. Though what the Doctor was up to he could only guess.

Their soft footsteps were muffled by luxurious carpet under their feet, he'd rather their feet made noise because then they could tell if they were being followed. But then again with six pairs of foot steps it would be difficult to tell if they were being followed at all.

Ahead of them was another pair of double doors, painted a bright white of a great luxury design. Chris Redfield, Clair's brother, told him about a mansion in the Arklay Mountains of Raccoon City where the T-Virus was originally developed. Umbrella seemed to like places of luxury as their secret labs, maybe it gave them a sense of security that no one would ever find out about them or that nothing would go wrong since luxury is about comfort and comfort makes you feel safe.

Leon and Tyrell lined up to repeat the same stunt they had just preformed on the other pair of double doors. Leon pressed his head against the door trying to listen for the sound of shuffling feet or the moans of the dead so he knew roughly were they were when he opened the doors, but he heard nothing but silence. They both took the handles and flung the doors open ready to fire.

They were at the top of some sort of grand staircase, the room was wide with plenty of room and the stairs appeared to descend downward in a sort of double helix pattern, the stairs were made of polished white marble with metal piping and glass. The floor of the room was also coated in white marble. But what caught Leon's sight was what was around the staircase.

Bodies, dozens of bodies all of them apparently dead and by the look of them and all were unmoving. Leon felt his stomach tighten as he readied himself to do battle with the undead again.

"Stay clear of them" Leon warned them as he let his rifle hang over his shoulder by the strap and pulled out a knife from his boot. He took a step closer to one of the cadavers, a male in a white lab coat, and waited for it to make any sudden movement, but it made none. "If it moves" he whispered to Tyrell who nodded indicating he got the picture.

Leon thrust the knife forward into the corpse's shoulder so it went in as far as it would go then he leapt back to his feet and held his gun ready to fire at it, expecting it to writher in agony and start getting up. But it didn't move at all, it lay completely still a knife sticking out of it's back. It didn't move, it didn't get up and by the look on its open eyes it wasn't even registering his presence. Leon didn't say anything as he nudged it with the tip of his boot, and still it did not react.

"It's dead" Leon said reaching down and taking his knife back from the corpse.

"Yeah well, fallen on the floor, pale in the face, wide staring eyes, but a knife stuck in the back is a good way of finding out" said Lucie half mockingly the other half in obvious disgust and annoyance "What's wrong with shouting to the entire room 'aright everyone, hands up those who are alive?'"

Tyrell however turned so his gun was pointing menacingly at Lucie.

"Don't you be a smart ass!" he hissed

Leon turned around to view the scene more fully and flashed his flash light on the faces of some of the dead people. Most had their eyes open and none of them registered his presence, they just stared straight ahead. From his experience in Raccoon City some zombies were intelligent enough to lay in wait and pretend to be dead only to attack when you got too close. Those zombies however could easily be spotted because their eyes followed you around the room like an unnerving painting. But whatever killed these people it defiantly wasn't the T-virus or any sort of virus he knew of.

He glanced over the rail, of the staircase and could see several floors below, though he couldn't see much he listened, listened for the unmistakable sign of one of those 'things' shuffling feat, soft moans, grunts, loud moans, anything.

"So much for the ship of the living dead" Tyrell said as if the entire idea was absurd.

Leon didn't want to encounter zombies on this mission but whenever Umbrella seemed to be involved there were always zombies in some shape or form and he didn't want to let his guard down, because that's when they got you, when you least expected it.

"Well Doctor" Leon said turning to look at the eccentric Brit "What do you make of this scene?"

The Doctor stepped between Conner and Tyrell, the latter refused to budge out of the way to let him pass easily and Lucie followed, her narrower frame letting her slip past more easily, she had a look of disgust about her body language and though her face wasn't clear he could tell she wasn't enjoying what she was seeing.

The Doctor however showed none of these signs as he quickly knelt down next to one of the bodies, a man in his forties who was laid on his back, and was examining him. He touched the hand on the cadaver then felt its face with his bare fingers before Leon could stop him, if they died from a new virus then they couldn't be sure it wasn't spread by physical contact rather then cuts and bites. The Doctor then looked around the back of the bodies shirt checking the skin for something before feeling the collar of the man's lab coat. He then checked another dead body and went over it with a similar procedure before checking another one.

"Curious" he mutter to himself as he looked around at the scene again, dozens of bodies just lay on the floor like this "I've never seen anything it before"

"You weren't around for my last party, were you" Lucie stated looking at the sprawled bodies all over the place

"Well?" Leon asked as the Doctor finished inspecting a fourth body.

"Well" the Doctor said getting to his feet "I'd say by the look of it, these people died spontaneously and all at a similar time"

"How did you figure that out?" Tyrell asked as if he'd caught the Doctor in a trap which incriminated him in the murder of these people. But Leon wanted to see what the Doctor said.

"First look at the position of the bodies" he said gesturing around him "if they were in mass panic they wouldn't be so sparsely spaced out. Now if you care to check their backs you'll see blood pooling where the blood settled in the body after the heart stopped which means the bodies haven't been moved and if they had what would be the point? Also look at their faces" he said turning to each one "Their faces are all pretty much neutral, some probably look tired and if you look over here" he went up to a couple who had fallen on top of each other, one of the bodies was male the other female "I suspect these two were in a relationship with each other, because the man still his the impression of lipstick on his cheek which is similar in shade and type she is wearing."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Tyrell asked sharply

"It explains that these people probably died very quickly and they didn't realize it" he said as if he was speaking to a child "If there was any sense of danger then the male here would've whipped that lipstick mark off his cheek before he did anything else, and there is no evidence of any sense of urgency" he went a little way down the stairs to take note of someone who had fallen down the stairs backwards and was sprawled on the steps "This fellow also died suddenly because of the way he fell, if he was shot then there would be evidence of blood pooling on the floor which rules out any type of piercing injury, this goes for all the bodies, therefore I'm guessing they must've been poisoned simultaneously, perhaps a nerve gas of some sort, but I'm not sure."

Leon had to admit he was impressed by this mans reasoning capabilities. The blood pooling evidence he supplied and demonstrated by showing them the dark marks on one of the bodies backs did show these corpses stayed where they fell and by the corpses lack of reaction to Leon or any of them they were probably not infected with T. But then what had killed them and killed them so quickly no one was able to raise the alarm? Leon then noticed with alarm that the Doctor had removed his gas mask and was taking great lung full's of air.

"Doctor, put that mask back on it's not safe…" He started but the Doctor just ignored him as he took another lung full of air. His face suddenly became unsure of something as he raised his hands to his chin in thought then turned to look at each of the bodies in turn then returned his attention back to the party and smiled.

"It's okay you can take your masks off, whatever killed them has long since dispersed." He said as he returned to whatever puzzle he was mulling over.

Leon was unsure if he wanted to take his gas mask off on the advice of a complete strange, but since Lucie also removed her mask he decided maybe there wasn't any danger after all. As Leon removed his mask the others followed suit though Tyrell hesitated before he did the same. The Doctor took out that strange looking metal tube again and the noise it made was soft and gentle this time.

"What is that thing?" he asked, it had opened the door earlier and this close up he could see it more closely but it didn't look like anything remarkable at all.

"I call it a Sonic Screwdriver" he said as he pointed the red circle tip around the room as if he was scanning something with it somehow. "No trace of harmful pathogens either" he said returning the device to his coat pocket.

"What does that thing do?" Leon asked curiously as the Doctor put it away.

"Well, it's pretty much a multipurpose tool" he said vaguely "But let me tell you something which is very interesting" he said looking at them as if this fact, whatever it was, disturbed him more then there being several dead bodies in the same room as himself. He was obviously waiting for someone to ask him 'what was interesting' Leon decided it might as well be him.

"What is very interesting?" he asked

"What can you smell?" he asked dropping his voice a few octaves as if he didn't want anyone apart from those in their party to over hear him. It also sounded spooky but he didn't know if that was the Doctor's intention or not.

"Fresh paint?" Lucie suggested there was the faint smell of fresh pain from somewhere but that wasn't what the Doctor was talking about, it wasn't the smell of something it was more the absence of a smell and Leon knew what smell was missing.

"These bodies have been dead and left to decay for 2 perhaps 3 days" the Doctor continued his voice normal again, "Yet where is the smell of decay and decomposition? Where is the break down of organic material and the release of sulphur and methane?" he dropped his voice again "Why is it, despite being in a room littered with bodies, that we cannot smell the pungent and unmistakable aroma of the dead?"


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The absence of the dead body smell didn't really ring the alarm bells in Lucie Millers head as they had done in both the Doctors and Leons. Sure okay it was odd, dead bodies should be a big whiffy.

The Doctor however being the typical science geek and show off he was mentioned the names of several 'chemical compounds' he could think of which had names so long you'd need a very long piece of paper just to write them down. But even as he mentioned the long names he crossed them off his mental list for reasons like 'doesn't exist at room temperature' 'degrades too quickly' 'not invented on earth yet' and one in particular he crossed off because 'it smelled of mint'.

Leon however was impassive as the Doctor rattled off his scientific knowledge. He looked like he knew exactly what had caused this yet at the same time looked unsure as well. Why did he stab that corpse? Why did he kick them, they were all clearly dead. It was as if he was actually expecting them to get up and attack them like an ambush party simply playing dead. Alright commando types were supposed to regard everything with hostility but still if something was dead, it was usually dead.

When she tried to ask Leon what he thought did this he just said coolly "I don't know" as he continued to watch the Doctor with curiosity. The eccentric scientist was now flexing the dead mans arms experimentally. Lucie had always believed they should respect the dead, after all they've lived their life leave them in peace, but since these deaths were suspicious she didn't say anything like that to the Doctor but did complain to Leon about sticking a knife in that body. But Leon just stood and took her words with an impassive look on his face like she was the one who didn't know what she was talking about.

"Rigor mortis hasn't set in either" the Doctor said as he continued to flex the dead mans fingers in his own.

"Rigor mortis? You mean that process that makes the body go all stiff after death?" she asked

"Yes the process that indeed as you say makes the body go stiff after death" he said in a half mocking tone to her as if she should already know this, the Doctor could be patronising at times, she let it pass this time considering the awkward situation they were in.

"In humans the process reaches maximum stiffness in the first 12 hours after death then dissipates after 3 days so these bodies have actually been dead for more then 3 days. Unless…" She didn't like it when he paused like this. "Unless like the smell of decomposition rigor mortis didn't set in either, I can't really be sure what caused this mass of spontaneous death unless I have a lab."

"You need a lab?" Leon asked still standing over Lucie and the Doctor, he didn't wait for them to reply "then finish your examination that's where we're heading next" he turned and went back to the other three.

"Doctor, he knows what's going on" Lucie said to the Doctor

"Perhaps Lucie, he doesn't seem to like this Umbrella Corporation does he?" he said as he reached into his pocket and produced a simple strange device he began rolling it over the dead mans arms "Hope you don't mind" he said to the corpse. Lucie could see the device was removing dead skin cells. He also took hair and nail samples, what did he plan to do with?

The Doctor then pulled on the dead mans lab coat so he could get a look at the name tag. It read 'Brian Cook'

"Sorry Brian" the Doctor said genuine sorrow in his voice as he lowered the body gently back down onto the floor. Then he got to his feet and walked back towards the party.

Lucie only then realised the spookiness of the scene she was viewing, with the room being so dark and the only lights coming from the torches strapped to the barrels of their guns made the room look like a scene from a horror movie. The long shadows they cast on the corpses looked incredibly eerie and the feeling of cold didn't help much either.

She gently stepped around 'Brian' and started walking towards the party when, something cold snagged her foot and she fell clattering to the ground. She turned to look at what she had tripped up and saw the grey face of a dead woman her arm outstretched as she had fallen but what scared Lucie where her eyes, they looked like they were staring right at her. She couldn't help yelping and quickly crawling away as if the dead woman was actually trying to get her.

The others were around her in a second, Leon especially had his gun pointed directly are the corpse girl. Lucie got t her feet and was surprised to see Leon just pointing his weapon at the dead woman as if waiting for the corpse to make a move. He breathed a slight sigh of relief and of annoyance as he dropped his weapon. He turned to look at Lucie.

"What did it look like?" he asked almost coldly "To have the image of the dead reaching for you?"

Lucie stared at him lost for words, she felt incredibly stupid with herself for yelping and everyone except the Doctor and Leon looked at her with annoyance. When Leon asked her the question she didn't need to answer it, she was bloody terrified of it and her body language was showing it. What did he mean by 'the dead reaching for you' was he trying to make some sort of point out of it.

"Just hope that's as close as you're going to get to it" Leon said mysteriously. Lucie turned away from Leon and the dead girl at the floor to see where the Doctor was but came face to face with Kaufman.

"The dead are rising from the graves girl" said Kaufman laughing, "they're coming to get you" he raised his arms and did the mock moan of a zombie then laughed as did the others in the team. Only Leon didn't seem to be amused and reguarded them rather impassively as if the joke insulted him as well.

* * *

The scene was the same everywhere they went, dead bodies just slumped against the walls all of them died and lay where they fell. Leon was on his guard in case any of these corpses showed any signs of movement, any twitch, any eye movement any head movement anything. The others in his team however were all a lot more relaxed by comparison.

The girl, Lucie was showing her unease at the dead corpses which didn't appear to be rotting. She had just had a major shock seeing a corpse in the shape it was, looking like it was crawling after her was as close as he wanted anyone to get to the dead rising up and coming after you. It was not a good feeling knowing that as you walk around that you're constantly being hunted by the undead. Thankfully though these bodies just sat there and didn't move, they appear to be truly dead and inactive, however he remained on his guard. Just because these bodies hadn't become the undead it didn't mean Umbrella didn't have any BOW's, short for 'Bio Organic Weapons' onboard, those who thought the zombies were a nightmare haven't seen anything yet.

Annoyingly Tyrell lightly grunted from time to time as he moved, which meant Leon didn't know if that was the sound of a proper T-virus infected zombie or just the lumbering muscle head. When Tyrell grunted again Leon grabbed the front of his uniform and forced him to stop. He fixed him with a stare which told him to knock it off. Tyrell just snorted but stopped doing his annoying grunt.

There was no carpet in this area so their feet echoed off the metal floors as they proceeded deeper and deeper into the ship. Leon tried to listen to the noises they made, the thudding and squeaking of their leather boots and the gentle tapping of the Doctors and Lucies shoes so he knew what they sounded like. Committing them to memory he was on the lookout for any foot steps which did not sound like these, any type of shuffling, any type of damp, wet padding noise.

The deeper they went into the ship the more and more bodies they found. They were looking for Umbrella's top secret lab. A lab where it is suspected they were performing genetic bio-weapon experiments. Hopefully there would be some evidence which will finally end Umbrella once and for all.

The labs were easy enough to find, when Umbrella refitted the Cairo for use as a lab they had generously placed signposts on the walls directly people to the different labs, specifically one was marked as virology. This had led them to a long corridor, along either side of were separate laboratory environments sealed off by a glass wall and mechanical sliding door. Their edges of their flash lights bathed the rest of the lab in an eerie looking shade of blue.

Suits for biological waste handling lay sprawled on the floor of the corridor and Leon guessed they contained yet more bodies, though he noticed none of these personal had died in their labs and the ones in suits looked like they died soon after exiting their labs.

"Curiouser and Curiouser" said the Doctor who sounded like he had also noticed this.

Leon's light fell on a heavy security door at the far end of the hall. On it was the unmistakable 'bio-hazard' symbol. The door also had a key code on it which none of them knew. He was going to ask Conner to hack into it but decided to see if the Doctor could work his 'magic' again. He also wanted to get another look at that device of his which he used to open the other locked door before.

"Think you can open this, Doctor?" he asked turning to look at him

"Yes I can open it" he said but he didn't make a move, he just appeared to be waiting for something. Lucie then gently elbowed him in the ribs.

"He's asking you to open the doors ya divvy!" she said in what she called a 'sandgrown'uns' accent which he then learnt was British slang for someone who came from Blackpool in England.

"Right, right" he said as he reached into his pockets again. Tyrell and Leon stepped out of his way as he produced his 'Sonic Screwdriver' again and was about to use it when it was snatched from his fingers by Tyrell.

"What the hell is this thing, limy?" he asked pointing it at the Doctor as if it was some sort of weapon.

"Just a device which utilises ultrasonic sound waves to vibrate in phase with the simple harmonic frequency of the trigger of a sophisticated tumbler mechanism or a simple electronic trigger."

Tyrell just looked blank at him and even muttered faint 'huh?' Leon had to admit he didn't understand a word of that either and neither had Lucie who just looked bored as if he did this all the time.

"Give it back to him, Tyrell" Leon said coolly "If he wanted to use it as a weapon he would have done already"

Tyrell held Leon's gaze and didn't break it for a full ten seconds. He waited a few moments before letting the Doctor take the Sonic Screwdriver back into his waiting hands.

"Thank you" he said cheerful to get his device back as if Tyrell had actually given it to him of his own free well. Leon doubted if Tyrell would've given it back if he hadn't instructed him.

The Doctor pointed his odd looking device and pressed down on a part of it. An entire section of tube like device slid down as it emitted that loud buzzing noise again. A bleep came from the pad and a single yellow light in a series of lights lit up, then another bleep and another light came on. Then came a series of bleeps which were all different in tone and with each bleep another light on the panel lit up as the device continued to buzz. Leon knew the lights lit up as you pressed the correct code into the key pad, somehow he guessed this device acted as some sort of short cut if you didn't know the code. The last few lights lit up and a clunking noise issued from the door as it gently started to swing open again. It worked.

Leon had never seen anything like that before, a device which produced sound waves to open doors. Who was this guy? That little toy of his was some serious piece of technology. He issued for the Doctor -who slipped the slim silver device back into his pocket- to get back behind him, which he did as Leon reached over took the door and flung it open the rest of the way and they were greeted by a sight which couldn't be any different.

Unlike the lab they had just passed through, which would've looked very clean and tidy had it not been for the dark lighting and dead bodies. This section of lab they now entered was anything but clean or tidy.

The entire room had been ripped to shreds, its glass walls had been shattered and in some the blinds which would be used to prevent people looking in at the research staff were half hanging off. The electrical equipment, files, books lay on the floor in a complete mess, some of the stuff had its wiring completely ripped out. A light in the ceiling sparked lighting the place up momentarily before dying down. That showed that there must still be power going through the ship. But then why was the rest of the ship in blackness?

What also lie across the several destroyed labs were body parts, severed body parts arms, legs, heads you name it. It was a gruesome sight, but not something Leon had not seen before.

"Good god!" said Conner taking in the sight of death and destruction, this is more what Leon expected though he'd wished that were not the case. At least there had been no sign of any infected but something had caused this, something large, angry and by the trail of destruction, merciless. Again the smell of decay was conspicuous by its absence, the only strong smell was the smell of ozone probably made by electric sparks from malfunctioning equipment.

They continued on, the broken glass littering the floor crunching under their feet as they progressed. Tyrell, Conner and Kaufman had dropped into their training and were finally taking this mission much more seriously. After all his years in this agency he'd noticed nothing put agents, whether rookies or veterans on alert more than the sight of destruction and human mutilation. There was no way these people were killed by the same thing which killed the rest, those had been instantaneous, at least according to the Doctor, these people had died in much more agony as they were ripped apart. He felt a pang of sorrow for them, no one deserved to die like this, no one deserved the fate of the T-virus or that of any monstrous thing born from Umbrella's experiments, except those who created them. He could not feel sorrow for William Berkin for example, who created the G-virus and in effect caused the Raccoon City incident.

They all approached the door at the far end of the corridor and they stopped. Unlike the last door it was left ajar.

Leon motioned with hand signals for Tyrell, Conner and Kaufman to be ready and for the Doctor and Lucie to stay back. But when he did the signals the two civilians just looked at each other and shrugged. Kaufman however helped by motioning with his hands for the two to take a few steps back and stay there while they checked this place out.

The four raised their rifles as they got into position. Leon took the handle and threw open the door and pointed his gun into the darkness beyond.

This lab was different to any of the other labs they had seen so far. This was a proper lab he was expecting. Banks of computers sat in every corner connected to machines which appeared to be holding different colours of liquid. He slowly took a step inside, waiting for a rasping breath of a low moan, something. The lab was large and contained all manner of machines which Leon couldn't guess at their function.

On one side of the lab were a row of large glass tubes large enough for a man to stand in. Most were open the glass cylinders retracted into the ceiling, but two were closed, one was unoccupied but next to it was one which held a specimen. Curled up in a foetal position and floating in a blue tinted liquid substance was what looked like a strange wolf with the shape of a gorilla with the scales of a crocodile.

"What in the name of heaven is that?" Conner said when he spotted it.

Leon looked at the curled up creature in the tank, whether sedated or dead he couldn't tell but it looked like a creature Chris Redfield had once described to him. He'd never seen one before but now he could say he had.

"It's what Umbrella called a 'Hunter'" he said, "one of the BOW's they developed in the Arklay mountain lab in Raccoon City" From what Redfield told him about the Hunter it was bad enough and ten times worse than any zombie. He could appreciate –that was the most suitable word he could think of- the power and destruction one of these things could do, but this wasn't the worst type of creature Umbrella could come up with.

Conner had disgust clear on his face and appeared unable to take his eyes off the mutant floating in the ooze which supported it. "What kind of sick people are we dealing with?"

Leon answered.

"The kind who like to play god"

* * *

**Authors notes: **All reviews welcome

Additional 16/11/2010: Corrected a mistake where I accdientally labeled Lucie as coming from Liverpool instead of Blackpool. The mistake has since been corrected


End file.
